Laid back ??? I wish...if forced yard work (which I usually enjoy) counts, then yeahhhhhhh..
ok, for Newport, here is the deal:
GIK took care of the show and the rooms, and the main room was absolutely perfect for their demo as it had a 150 sq. feet patio where you could put all of the room acoustics stuff in the before-and-after demo..obviously my $ 6900 system was in there, so I sat up the room and let Glenn and Shelley do their demos, of course....now, the 2nd room hasn't been given any attention from anyone...guess we expected just a plain square room, but man, what a surprise...
regular 18 feet deep, but the back 40 % where caved in...not a biggie, as you could place the system sideways off center, which usually gives actually quite good results in hotel rooms...not perfect for seating, but very doable.....BUT smack in the middle of the room is a 4 1/2 feet x 2 feet air conditioning shaft / whatever that cut the room in half....that left me with appr. 40 % usable space...no, couldn't do the sideways demo because of this intrusion, but that wasn't the worst of it....wait for it...........the wall material was so thin, (more of a glorified cardboard), it was a ridiculous boombox...having rear-ported speakers, I had to go at least 3 feet away from that wall intrusion (which was only on one side, obviously)...Friday was terrible, moved the speakers inwards Saturday morning to escape the wall loading a good 60-70%, ....so, the result was that I had an effective space of a 10 x 8 ' listening room, and it took me hours of inching the system and seats back and forth to hit at least a good to very good sweet spot...however, if you were seating off center, and ESPECIALLY if you were standing anywhere, bass boom was overwhelming....sitting...good. standing + ridiculous...which meant that people who took their time and spent their listening time in one of the 2 chairs were mostly super impressed, while people coming in, standing around for 30 seconds and walked out must have gotten a super negative impression...definitely NOT what you want to achieve at a show where people get impressions about you and your products, and which all in all sets you back over 6 K, notwithstanding all of the hours you put in......
Actually, when people listened a bit longer, and when there were 3-4 people in the room, I made them play musical chairs, the 2 good ones, 1 side one, and 1 person standing up....everybody knew and sort of understood room acoustics,m but when it is this brutal, people have their WOW experience...in your face...
So, this was somewhere around my 90th show or so in nearly 3 decades.......and it was by far one of the 2 worst rooms I have ever had to deal with....what a fucking piece of shit that was...and Richard should be shamed to sell this as an active listening room.....
Observations:\
- the other room of ours sounded lovely, and GIK's demos were a big success
- location...we were also behind the elevator, away from the normal flow of the floor, which meant that some people didn't find us.....
- by Sunday, with me playing a bit more with dampening behind the seats, the results were spectacular, and I didn't even have to control the volume much....let 'er rip, and ripping she did...
- The Liquid speakers: I am building my own pair for my own personal system, and I have so overachieved, that both, the Symphonic Line Legato's and the Egglestone Andra's will be for sale.....I did better in many ways !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- If I can get that kind of performance out of this room with a < 10x8 setup, imagine what I can do in a good room....
- As to California...we stayed with friends in Laguna, across the street from a Cliff beach.........so, Ira went completely beach bum that weekend, didn't go to the show a single day, showed me he finger when I asked her to go, hehehehe..........it is so incredibly beautiful, that we decided to move there later this year.....only 1 problem, : have to find 6-8 Million......
- the show itself: smaller than others.....not quite as knowledgeable in regards to my gear as people at other shows.....other rooms seemed to cater 90 % + to the OC money...for sure...and the big rooms were a joke...let me rephrase that: really fantastic if you want Rickie Lee Jones 12" tall......
- and as for that particular room, and to be fair to others: the same room problems had to be dealt with by the exhibitors in the other 3 floors or so...not just us. And I can't imagine that there were happy campers either...
as always with these shows, the bottom line is the bottom line....with recognition and a wide representative showing to the most people possible I failed miserably at this show and this room.....as for the $ bottom line (and if you wouldn't do any business, why go at all ? ) we did very, very well..........Thanks OC..
Late,
Klaus
